The Lamplighter
by 2am-ramen
Summary: Before Amon was taken into the orphanage, he met a man who called himself The Lamplighter. On the distant hills of Japan and by the woods of a valley, the two strike a companionship under a blanket of stars. The Lamplighter is a tale of how Amon was found, how he grew to love the man he called his father, and how, in turn, his father loved him.


As a child, Amon always spent a lot of time by the valley. And that was before he found a home in the orphanage.

The valley was very beautiful with evergreen conifers that stood tall and high; shrubs, bushes, creepers and climbers in every direction you looked, the calls and cries of the thousands of birds that lived in the valley, by the calm and serene lake that was surrounded by the rolling hills and low mountainous peaks.

Amon couldn't remember how or when he got there but that part of Japan was very cold and chilly. If you walked 20 minutes to the north, there was a small town with a few tiny shops that sold fruits, vegetables and bread, a restaurant that Amon only remembered as being owned by an elderly man who served hot ramen, a flower shop, a mini-supermarket and then some more that had faded in memory over the years.

When he wasn't roaming in the wilderness around the valley, or visiting the town Amon spent his time in an abandoned shrine deep in the woods to the East. It was a solitary place that he had accidentally stumbled upon one cold night. Amon knew very little about the world at that age and he couldn't read - so he never knew which God the shrine belonged to. A forgotten god perhaps, because nobody ever visited. The clearing where the shrine was located was often witness to maddeningly beautiful rays of sunlight that filtered into the dense canopy in the mornings, waking him up. Rabbits would scamper by sometimes and he would throw them crumbs of his food.

The old woman who sold freshly baked bread always took pity on him and sent him off with a loaf straight out of the oven that used to stay warm even on cold nights. She was a kind soul, a very busy soul and when she knelt down to place the hot bread in his arms - she looked at him warmly. It warmed his lonely heart and he visited her little shop for her bread every other day. He remembered that he hadn't survived on much other than the woman's bread for a long time. It was the flour and sugar he ate and the lake's water he drank that managed to keep the scruffy clothes clinging onto his barely-there body.

Years later after he had become a ghoul investigator, he had gone back there - paid a visit to the valley and the town for memories' sake - and learned of the old woman's death 10 years ago. Kiki's Anpan, her shop had been called. The woman who currently ran the shop told him that the old lady had been widowed far too early, had no relatives and longed very much for a child all her life. A wave of nostalgia hit him and he couldn't contain his grief when he visited her grave. His tears watered the stone in front of his knees and he said 'Thank you'. After all, she had kept him alive.

On some nights Amon just couldn't sleep and would trudge up the hills that overlooked the lake. He would sit on a peak and gaze at the stars and wonder what they were and why they twinkled so brightly. Sometimes a few creatures of the night would keep him company from afar and he felt grateful. The nights were quiet and young Amon had nothing but solitude and a sky full of stars.

It was on one such night that he met the Lamplighter.

A sound had roused him out of his slumber and Amon stretched his emaciated body, sitting up on the grass. The sound came closer and closer but it was dark except for the light from the Moon hidden behind the clouds and he couldn't see anyone or anything. The sound briefly stopped and Amon twisted in his perch to peer behind him. It started up again and he strained his ears - the sound of a moving wheelbarrow. The squeaks of the wheels sounded louder and closer until a tall figure appeared in sight.

The man rolling the wheelbarrow was dressed in a faded black coat, black pants with its edges slightly frayed and wore a black cap. His face wasn't very clear because the cap cast a shadow from the moonlight and as he neared the peak, Amon wondered whether to run away or stay.

"Oh dear boy," The man stopped in front of Amon and dropped the handles of his wheelbarrow. "What are you doing here?"

"..."

"You don't have to run away." The man chuckled and took off his cap. It struck Amon's young intelligence that he was not like him - he looked different. He didn't look like the people in town either. He was… __foreign.__

Amon was squatting on his haunches, ready to run if the stranger chased him or threw something as they often did because of his raggedy appearance. He didn't know how to answer the man because he rarely spoke to people even though he understood them. The young boy didn't even know if his voice would sound normal.

"You look scared. I'm not doing to do anything to you." The man said and smiled. It was a brittle smile. "I'm just here to finish my job. Do you want to watch?"

Amon's first response was to raise his eyes to meet the stranger's. They were icy blue and his hair was white, he noticed. His second response was to set his buttocks on the grass, legs in front of him. This man didn't look like he was going to chase him. The stranger took notice and nodded.

"Alright then. I ask that you pray."

Pray? To whom? For what? Amon managed a feeble nod and just settled himself to watch this strange man do his strange job.

He hadn't noticed that the wheelbarrow was covered in a black cloth. When the stranger pulled it off, his eyes grew as wide as saucers.

On the wheelbarrow were numerous glowing balls. They were the size of a melon and glowed with a tinge of blue. They emitted a strange sort of light and did not look solid - but rather wispy, as they had some wispy strands around them. Almost like they were made of gas.

Amon looked both wonder-struck and perplexed because to his childlike mind, this was some sort of a magic. He wanted to take a closer look and yet, an unknown fear made him unable to make a move. With his mouth open and eyes reflecting the glowing orbs in front of him, Amon could do nothing but watch what unfolded next.

The stranger reached in and pulled an orb from the wheelbarrow, holding it between his palms. He looked at it with yet another brittle smile. Amon did not know if this was a dream or if it was really happening. He pinched himself but didn't know how to differentiate.

The man turned to Amon. His eyes were so pale and startling in the darkness and the faint moonlight and the boy couldn't say anything.

"Pray."

And he raised his arms and released the orb into the night sky.

It floated higher and higher until, it was just a faint speck and Amon wondered - was this how those stars high in the sky came to be? Did this man make them? Did he put them there?

The stranger repeated this over and over until the wheelbarrow was empty and all the glowing orbs had become invisible dots in the sky. He swept his gaze over the navy blue canopy over his head and then sighed, covering the wheelbarrow with the black cloth again.

"Were you scared?" He asked Amon.

Amon shook his head.

"That's brave. Other humans normally would find this frightening." Another smile - but not brittle this time. It was something different.

"W… What were th…those?" Young Amon found himself asking. His voice sounded strange - raspy and broken and unused.

"So you can speak." The stranger looked at him - interested - and walked closer to sit beside Amon. He was a towering figure next to the emaciated small boy and Amon was slightly awe-struck.

"They call me the Lamplighter. The townspeople," The stranger gestured. "A lamplighter is a person who lights the streetlamps. But that's what __they__ __think__ I do," He leaned in and said in a whisper. "I light the lamps in the sky."

"The s..sky?" This confirmed Amon's theory that he was indeed, the man who put all those stars in the sky.

"Yes. You see, those," The stranger pointed a long, thin finger at the empty wheelbarrow. "What do you think those were?" He looked at Amon intently.

"...S..stars."

"Ha-ha boy!" The man laughed and slapped his thigh - and Amon cowered in his place - but there was no humor in it. "I believe you don't know much about the world do you?" He looked at the small boy again. "No. Those were the souls of young children."

"T..the.."

"The souls of young children." The man nodded at Amon's wide eyes and gaping mouth. "Children like yourself. Children who are no longer walking on this Earth." He picked up a small twig and twirled it around his fingers. "Dead children." His gaze pierced through Amon.

"I gather these wandering souls and release them into the Heavens." He continued, looking upwards and Amon followed his gaze. "Because they did nothing wrong you see." He smiled again at Amon and it sent chills down his spine.

"..."

"Why d..did they…die?"

The stranger glanced at Amon with an unreadable expression before flicking his eyes skywards. Then he broke into a wide smile and uttered a set of words that Amon would never forget for the next 30 years.

"For pleasure."

* * *

Over the course of the next few months, the Stranger would roll his wheelbarrow up the hill where Amon liked to stargaze and the latter would watch him release the orbs into the sky. This became a ritual between man and boy- two people who never really grew any closer than they had been at their first meeting - but a ritual nonetheless. The man never seemed to want to harm him in any sort of manner but no matter how much Amon tried to warm upto him, an unknown, slow-paced growing sense of fear lingered in him, preventing him from wanting to tag along and maybe find a home with the stranger.

On one such night, man and boy sat side by side, watching the orbs melt into the inky blackness of the sky when the former draped a blanket over Amon's bony shoulders. It startled him to the extent that he almost scrambled away before realizing that the sudden warmth was not because he was being choked - like he feared would happen to him - but from the blanket.

"Do you not have a home?" The stranger asked him.

Amon shook his head no.

"How old are you?"

Amon shook his head again. He didn't know.

"What do you eat? What do you live off of?"

"Bread. The obaa-san in town gives me bread. And water from the lake. Sometimes leftovers that I find." His voice had grown stronger, smoother, from his broken but frequent conversations with the Stranger. Talking didn't seem like a foreign, scary thing anymore.

"Hmm."

They sat in silence for a while before Amon mustered the courage to ask the stranger something he had been wanting to ask for a while.

"If…" He trailed off. Suddenly he didn't know why he wanted to ask.

"What is it?"

"If I die, like those children," Amon tipped his chin in the direction of the wheelbarrow which was empty. "Will I also become an orb like that… and will you send me to the heavens?"

The stranger looked at Amon for a while, his face poorly illuminated by the weak light of the stars above and Amon didn't know what to make of his silence.

That is, until the stranger broke into a wide smile.

"Of course I would."

Amon was but a child and his young brain couldn't understand the meaning of those words, but he did understand, as he watched the stranger walk away with his wheelbarrow that he was not considered a friend. He was not special.

* * *

Intuition was something Amon had to teach himself as a homeless orphan struggling to survive but honing the sense had only been a futile attempt - it was still as dull as a blunt knife - and so, Amon wasn't able to tell himself to run away the next time when the Lamplighter came trudging up the hill with the glint of a sharp knife inside his long coat.

"Tell me boy, what do you think of this world?" the man said, once he had finished sending the orbs floating up into the sky. Amon was curious to know the reason as to why there were not many orbs tonight as usual but the unknown fear stopped him from asking.

"It's… lonely." Amon admitted, chin between his knees.

"Indeed. If there is no pleasure, the world is a very empty place." Pleasure. Amon didn't know the meaning of this word.

"I don't have a home and I don't have friends." he murmured, his voice cracking slowly. He wanted to cry. He wanted to complain and bawl his eyes out - like he'd seen so many of the kids in town do in front of their parents. He wanted to be in a home, to have his chin wiped clean of dripping ice-cream by a loving set of parents. He didn't even know what these things felt like. After surviving by himself for so long, he had grown quiet and silent and numb to all of these desires. But after the stranger had taught the young boy what it felt like to make conversation and speak with another human being, all those desires were welling up again slowly, like a lake in heavy monsoon.

"Boy," The lamplighter's voice called out and Amon looked up at the man. "This world is a big joke. If you cannot enjoy the pain, you will feel pain. If you want to live free of pain, you must laugh at everything."

Amon's silence made the stranger gaze at him long and hard.

"Are you scared of me?"

Amon shook his head no. Yes he was still scared. But certainly not to the degree that he wanted to end his companionship with the man. He had finally learnt to talk. Despite the fear and apprehension remaining, Amon looked forward to the nights when the Lamplighter came with his wheelbarrow. For him, he had finally found a friend - someone who talked to him, even if only things Amon couldn't understand and someone who sat beside him and didn't chase him away.

The Lamplighter clicked his tongue.

"You are scared boy. I can see it. Humans are so weak and easy to understand. I have been around them long enough to understand how disgustingly open they can be to those who will one day kill them. What is even more disgusting however, is how they have the brains to run away when danger strikes, but not before danger strikes. Humans are fickle and brittle creatures. It's disgustingly entertaining to watch."

The growing sense of fear thumped inside Amon when the stranger gave him a smile - a smile that chilled him to the bones. His tone of voice told even Amon's dull intuition, that he didn't say anything very comforting.

"What's your name?" the stranger asked.

"A…Amon." Amon pulled out a string around his neck - a long, black dirty string with an aluminium pendant tied to it. He had always had it around his neck even though the words on the pendant, he couldn't read. He assumed it was his name, but it was all he had to show other than his malnutrition-ed body. He held it out to the stranger.

"Amon Koutarou." The man thumbed the pendant, reading the kanji that was scrawled on it. He reached into his coat and pulled out a cross, tying it to the string beside the pendant. Then he stood up.

"I run an orphanage." He said and picked up his wheelbarrow. Amon watched him.

"Come with me."

* * *

It was only when Amon had chanced upon Donato relishing in the taste of one of his dorm-mates that it dawned on him - the meaning of those words the Lamplighter had spoken to him all those years ago.

 _ _For pleasure.__

Over the years since he came to the orphanage, the unknown sense of fear had dulled down to the point where he couldn't even feel it anymore. He had made friends with other boys his age, he was eating proper food. He got proper sleep in proper clothes in a proper bed. Donato was a kind, fatherly figure even though sometimes the smiles he gave the children, and Amon, seemed to be filled with not love and warmth but contempt and cruelty. None of the other children seemed to feel this however, and in Amon's happiness, he too failed to take notice of it after a while.

He had completely forgotten why he had felt scared of Donato until that very moment.

He had cried, he had shivered in fright, he had tried to run away. He had grown to believe that the world was a very wrong and twisted place for humans to live in - and now he believed it even more.

'Father' they called him - he and his friends. 'Priest' they called him - on Sundays when they prayed in church. 'Papa' he called him - only him, when they were alone.

'The Lamplighter' he called him - when he told his friend how he had come to the orphanage.

It was the same friend that his father was enjoying the sight of - only now, he was dead.

He then remembered how he had asked Donato back then if he would also be sent off to the heavens if he died.

 _ _Of course I would.__

Though Amon had concluded long ago that he was not special in Donato's eyes, for some reason, his father let him live.

* * *

He had felt stung, scared, lonely and sad when he was found by Mikito Urie's squad once Donato had been captured. Amon's little peaceful, homely world had been thrown in disarray ever since he had realized that Donato was a ghoul - but he had faked not-knowing anything at all even after that. The truth had broken the lively boy but he bore on, with his friends, who somehow seemed to go missing after a while. He understood however, what was happening but did not question it or speak about it or think about it for a while.

After Donato had disappeared from his life, Amon's sense of justice about the wrong and twisted world only seemed to push him harder to be the best ghoul investigator there was. That sense of wanting to correct the world's wrongs was there at all times - except when he first saw Donato in Cochlea - to ask him about something.

"My dear son," Donato had greeted through the thick, tempered glass walls and Amon broke down completely.

He restrained himself from seeing Donato after that though it was impossible not to sometimes, for various ghoul hunting cases. Apparently Donato's twisted and merciless personality had valuable input to offer when hunting down difficult ghouls - and Amon agreed, to an extent. What made it hard to remain stoic throughout his interrogation sessions with Donato however, was the fact that the ghoul would address him by 'Son' and 'My dear' - all of which made Amon tear up inside.

And then after that, Amon learned to toughen himself up and his ghoul investigator days had been a blur. He suffered losses which were made bittersweet by the memories of the gains - partnering with Mado and then losing him. He had met people who confused him - Ken Kaneki and people he fell in love with - Akira Mado.

And then he had been ' _ _Killed in Action__ '. He died a human and came back to life a ghoul.

None of it, helped him understand his father however. None of his experiences - not even becoming a ghoul - helped clear the muddle in his head about the psychology of Donato's cruel, merciless mind.

He had heard that Donato had escaped Cochlea during the Third Cochlea Raid. But he didn't have a chance to meet, let alone fight him. During his days of enduring torture and the mental damage of coming to terms with becoming a ghoul he thought of his father a lot. He wondered if there would be another life waiting for him, one in which he and Donato were normal humans - a normal father and son.

Sadly, despite being a priest, Donato would never be able to answer that, neither could Amon. And if God existed, he wouldn't answer either.

* * *

And yet here he was, years later, face to face with his foster father - fighting to kill the one who had given him a home.

"My son," Donato greeted him, blocking Amon's quinque attack with his kagune. "What luck - we meet like this after so many years when you didn't even like to visit your foster father. And now you want to kill me."

"Amon Koutarou!" Takizawa shouted from the next building. "Why the hell, are ya still wearin' that thing?!"

 _"_ _ _WHY?!"__

Amon's chest throbbed as he glanced down around his neck. Then he looked at the man in front of him, his kagune poised and ready - his face, wearing a sad smile.

He had been wearing it all this time. Even though he had known that Donato Porpora was nothing but pure evil - he had somehow clouded his mind over it - differentiating him from all the other despicable ghouls.

Because Donato was his father. The only thing he had clung onto as a child.

And so he reshaped his quinque into a cross and killed his father.

"Donuts." Amon's voice was cracking, breaking and trembling. "Those donuts you made for us as snacks. They were delicious."

Donato regarded this statement with a rueful smile.

"You came with blankets on cold nights. And when the dog we took in died," It was starting to drizzle. "You built a grave for it in the hills."

The dying man's lips trembled in what one would regard, a mocking laugh but Amon saw differently.

"I ate in the shadows, every single child of that 'we'," He laughed. "Still nostalgic for those days?"

Amon was seeing hazy. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes.

"Yes." He replied. The drizzle grew slightly heavier. "I try to forget those days. I try to hate you. But to me, the days I spent in that orphanage are terribly dear."

Donato's head was no longer laughing but his eyes stared at him with an unreadable emotion.

"I am an orphan. An abandoned child. You found me in those hills. You took me in. You raised me. I found out the sort of person you are," His voice broke and Amon choked. "A villain. A ghoul. A mass murderer. An amoral dreg of a man. Yet…"

Amon raised his eyes to look at his father through the heavily falling tears.

"Do you remember those nights - when you released those orbs into the night sky, together with me?

"You said you didn't care. I understood that I wasn't special in your eyes. But you let me live. So then," Amon cried. He could no longer see properly. The pain was tormenting his heart.

"Is it a son's fault, for loving his father?"

Donato's eyes widened and his lips trembled before his voice erupted in laughter.

"Father? Hahahahahaha! __Father?__ A masterpiece! Hahahahaha!"

Amon watched, his heart sinking into his depths - he had lost Donato long back but now he had truly lost him. It was even harder to acknowledge the truth sitting atop all of this - he had never had Donato in the first place.

Still Donato had been his father. And he, his son.

And he would remember Donato beautifully - not as a man who preyed on children that he raised but as a stranger who sent their bright young souls, floating up into the sky like lanterns.

"Hahahaha! Haha…ha ha ha ha…haha! Ha..ha..ha…"

Donato's eyes leaked as he laughed - they were tears of sadness - and his laughter rang out until he died.

He had been wrong to think he wasn't special. Amon __had__ been special.

The Lamplighter didn't send him to the heavens. He loved Amon.

* * *

A/N: Hiya, Ninhelium here. This story is the product of a picture I saw years back, someone's drawing - of a man releasing stars into the sky from a wheelbarrow. After reading chapter 171 and 172 of TG re a few weeks back, I decided to write this based on that picture. I think the idea fits rather well and I'm rather proud of the end result. Please do tell me what you think of it! You can find me on AO3 under the name 'ninhelium' as well and on Tumblr as 'y-u-gen'. Thank you for reading!


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